


a heartbeat without harmony

by cartoonmoomba



Series: I walked around the world until I found my gravestone [5]
Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: 3.4 patch, AU: WoL, F/M, OC, more stuff for my WoL!OC
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-21
Updated: 2017-05-21
Packaged: 2018-11-03 09:54:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 872
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10964847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cartoonmoomba/pseuds/cartoonmoomba
Summary: He kisses her like she is both his salvation and his sin, deep and reverent and furious.





	a heartbeat without harmony

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Final Fantasy XIV does not belong to me. Preface and ending quote is Kiersten White.
> 
> It's been, what, a year since 3.4? And I just now got the inspiration to write more for my WoL!OC and the WoD. I am back to WoL/WoD trash. I regret nothing. 
> 
> Works as a continuation to the WoL/WoD stories in this series thus far. This is more of a personal indulgence drabble than anything. *shrug*

_._

_._

_in a hundred lifetimes_

_in a hundred worlds_

_in any version of reality,_

_._

_._

 

He kisses her as if he is a man starving – a man dying – and she:

His oasis, his Lifestream, his saving grace.

.

.

 

He asks her once, "Where do you think he is?" 

There is no waterfall anymore, no sweet smell of Gridanian flowers. The hot air of Thanalan occupies her apartment accompanied by the orange set of the sun. It is a cloudless sky. She lies in the crook of his arm, a finger idly tracing the scars of his body. 

"I dare not wonder." Her voice is quiet in its reply. "Perhaps he is dead. Perhaps he is wounded. What other reason would he have to not come find me?" Her sigh shivers the skin of Arbert's chest. "Mayhaps he is naught but a ghoul that had come to torment me in the wake of the Calamity. I know not his name, nor his face, nor the sound of his voice..."

Her eyes press shut and she buries her face in his side. He does not tell her that it does little in hiding her tears - not when he is aware of her every little tremble, the pulsation of her Light a burning presence against his skin. 

"If he does yet live, does yet exist..." She sighs again, forlorn and heart sick. His stomach churns at the sound. "I like to imagine that he has found a fishing village somewhere. On a quiet coast in Vylbrand, where there is nothing but him and the sea and the sky." Her eyelashes flutter like moth wings on his skin. "I think he would enjoy that."

There is sea brine on Arbert's tongue and the sound of the rolling waves. A lifetime ago beckons him. He closes his eyes and works hard to forget _(his village, his father and their boat; the Quicksand, his friends' laughter, the dancing girl whispering of roses in his ear_ ) everything that came before.

"Fishing," he whispers into her hair. "What a dull hobby."  

.

.

Each press of his lips against hers consumes the Light within which makes her _Savior - Warrior - Daughter_ \- until she is nothing but a girl once more, mortal flesh and bone and flushed skin and her fingers finding purchase on the broad expanse of his back as she silently begs: _free me free me free me_. 

He kisses her like she is both his salvation and his sin, deep and reverent and furious. Her chest presses tightly against his and her Crystal _keens_ ; she gasps as the longing comes, a tidal wave cresting over her whole with no promise of end. His hands leave their icy chill branded onto her neck, her breasts, her waist – she arches into him, willing and wanting and benevolent.  

The shape of his body over hers is familiar and a name not his own ( _is it?_ ) makes as if to uncurl from her tongue. She loses it in the moment between them and after, the memory is bitter in her throat as it cuts past her skin and her bones to the depths of her soul.

.

.

She wakes to empty space beside her, echoed by the empty space she feels deep within her chest. The warm light of dawn paints the sheets in hues of orange and red. Sleepily, Lieal reaches out to touch the creases his body had left behind. She wonders if this time he will not be coming back.

She wonders if she would be sad to see him go. 

.

.

The both of them perched on the edge of the housing district, Arbert gives her both a street vendor's steaming bun and a single wild rose. Lieal takes the treat with no hesitation and stares at the flower.

"What?" He asks her, arching a brow as she continues to refuse his offering. "You don't like flowers?"

"I do," she says. Her eyes meet his and she mirrors his expression. "It's the wild roses I am not particularly fond of." 

Arbert scoffs. "What kind of woman does not like roses?"

"The kind that has seen far too many of them at far too many funerals." She reaches over and runs her finger down the length of his forearm. "I appreciate the thought. Thank you." 

The flower lingers between them. The sound that comes out of Arbert's chest cannot be described as laughter. "So, even here they liked roses." 

"It is a pity," Lieal agrees, quietly, and throws the rose into the gaping abyss below them. "It is far too beautiful of a flower to hold such agonizing memories." 

The words are out of his mouth before Arbert can catch them. "Just the same as you, then."  

_(The dancing girl in Ul'Dah—_

_Did he ever ask her name?)_  

Smiling, Lieal reaches for his hand and places it gently over her heart; over her beating Crystal. "Yes," she says, and her smile cannot be described as happy. "Just like me. And also, just like you."  

.

.

In the middle of the night she wakes from the grasps of a nightmare and whispers - "Arbert!" - and the figure she presses herself against, it feels like she had expected _no one but hi—_  

_._

_._

_I would find you_

_and I would choose you._

 


End file.
